Communication networks for mobile radios involve protocols that coordinate the data being communicated between the radios. One such protocol follows the well-known OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) standard, in which communication tasks between networked devices are divided into manageable layers, as shown in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, the communication tasks are divided into application, presentation, session, transport, network, data link, and physical layers within each peer within the communication system. Communication data is packed and unpacked from one peer application to another by applying (or removing) headers AH, PH, SH, TH, NH, etc. to the original user data as it approaches (or leaves) the transmission media.
The present invention generally relates to the data at the transport layer. This layer is the highest level for tasks associated with the communication service provider. That is, the application layer through the session layer are associated with the data end-user and the transport through the physical layers are the responsibility of the communication service provider. As the highest layer associated with communication service, the transport layer has the ultimate responsibility for providing reliable peer to peer communication data delivery.
The transport layer protocol can follow the TCP (transport control protocol) for file transfers or the UDP (user datagram protocol) for terminal emulation applications. In either event, the network protocol (just below the transport layer) can follow the IP (Internet protocol) for transmission on the Internet or an equivalent protocol (such as ENL (EDACS Network Layer) used by Ericsson). When the above protocols are used, the data with its associated headers will appear as in FIG. 2, with application information, a TCP header and a IP header coming from, respectively, the session, transport and network layers. FIG. 3 illustrates a similar data protocol with a UDP header replacing the TCP header.
Occasionally, a communication network will employ a small number of communication managers to negotiate data traffic for a large number of remote devices. The managers are sometimes referred to as servers and the remote devices as peers. This occurs, for example, with mobile radio networks, in which a large number of remote mobile radios communicate with each other through the help of a server, as shown in FIG. 4. Mobile radios are connectionless and thus the radios broadcast their messages to and from the client via broadcast sites and gateways. In a typical mobile radio network, a city will have one or more broadcast sites connected to a network gateway that communicates with the client via wireline communications.